M&M of Doom
by Tsukino Akume
Summary: Dustin contemplates an old Christmas gift.


Dustin angst! And no real Shane/Dustin! -Mock gasp- What is wrong with me?!

This just sort of came to me while staring at my own little yellow M&M container that I got for Christmas. I have no idea why, but I just sort of ran with it. A possible sequel is still up in the air.

Enjoy!

The M&M of Doom

It sat on his dresser day after day, mocking him.

Eventually he moved it to the mess that covered his computer desk, hoping it would end up buried in some pile of junk and he'd completely forget about it. But somehow it managed to avoid being lost, sitting casually to the side. Almost accusing him.

When he got frustrated, he made the mistake of throwing it into a clothes pile. Unfortunately that ended up with his motocross gear, which meant he didn't find it until he was at the track with Kelly. She'd eyed him funny when she found him staring at it, but let it go when he told her it was nothing. Seeing it just made him angry all over again, and he made his dumbest mistake ever: he tossed it into his toolbox.

Which is how Hunter got a hold of it.

"Hey, what's this?"

He barely glanced up from the bike he was working on. He was on a deadline, and if he didn't get it done in time Kelly was going to murder him. "What's what, dude?"

"It looks like a giant M&M to me, Bro." Blake informed his brother, sounding amused.

Hunter leaned over to give him a smirk. "I'd ask why you have a giant M&M in your toolbox Dustin, but it's you."

"Hey!" He jerked up at that, glaring. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Hunter rolled his eyes. "You probably kept tossing it around to get it out of your way every time you found it."

He frowned. When had Hunter gotten to know him that well? "Just put it back, Dude."

"Wait a minute, didn't Shane give you that last Christmas?" Tori piped up.

He cursed silently. "Yeah. Still can't figure out what to do with it, though."

She laughed. "You're such a packrat. It's not that important; it was just a container for the candy."

He scowled. "Like you're one to talk." he snapped. "I've seen your room!"

There was an awkward pause.

"Sorry. Didn't realize you were so sensitive about it." Tori said shortly, her voice soft.

He sighed, leaning his head against the bike in front of him as Blake hastily changed the subject.

It was dumb, but he couldn't bring himself to throw the stupid thing away. Yeah, it **was** just a metal container that used to have a little bag of M&Ms in it. Nothing special or anything-they were always around during the holidays. Shane had even confessed he was low on cash that season, and it was about all he could afford.

The problem wasn't what it **was**, it was what it **became**. What it reminded him of.

No one else had ever really noticed before, but he thought a lot about things. Not in the way Cam did; he wasn't a genius or anything. But he wondered about how things worked, why things were the way they were, how people acted, why life just...was.

He tended to symbolize things because of the way he thought. And since last Christmas was just a few months after they became Rangers, yellow meant something more to him now. So the little yellow container represented him, see? And he was empty on the inside, because everybody saw the bright yellow outside and didn't think about what was underneath it. They didn't wonder if there was something more to it.

That got him thinking about the commercials.

In the M&M commercials, there was the mean little red chocolate M&M who always bossed around the big yellow peanut M&M. And the yellow one really wasn't **that** stupid, but he was sorta dumb. The red one treated him like dirt, and all the other M&Ms didn't really pay much attention to him. He seemed like he was important, since he was the one who was always with the red guy, but he was really just the red guy's lackey.

You could learn a lot from M&Ms. The blue ones were cool, and did their own thing. The green ones were confident and knew how to handle any situation. The orange ones weren't there all that often, but they were weird and everyone else just sort of ignored them.

And yellow... Yellow was the dumb lackey, who got bossed around and did what they were told. The butt of the joke; the idiot. The comic relief. Who idolized the red guy, liked everyone else, but never really got noticed. Barely a step above orange...

"Dustin?"

He blinked a few times, refocusing on the bike in front of him. "Yeah?"

Shane leaned over the counter. "Hey dude, we're going out for lunch. When's your break?"

"Not 'til I finish this bike, Dude." he said regretfully. "You guys should just go and like, bring me back something."

"You sure, Dude?"

"Positive." He waved from behind the bike.

And after the door closed, he found a clean part of his sleeve to wipe his eyes with.


End file.
